Finally LastPass Autofill on iOS

I have to admit that I don't know how long this has been there, I just noticed it last week.
iOS (on my iPad) can finally use LastPass

(my favorite password manager) in addition to it's own keychain.

All you have to do (besides of course having a LastPass account and having the LastPass app installed on your device) is the following.

Go to the Settings menu, and find the section "Passwords & Accounts".
There you will see the item "AutoFill Passwords". Touch on the arrow to the right to get to the next step.

.

You should see all installed AutoFill applications there, in my case Keychain and LastPass.



All you need to do here, is select the check mark to the right to enable it.

Depending on your LassPass vault and settings, on the next Login (app or web-page), you will be given a choice to select the credentials from your LastPass account. In my case I have to provide a fingerprint first... but that's it.



Pretty cool. Essentially the same as with Keychain, just accross platforms. That's why I use LastPass.

Five Reading Tools - part V: Reader in Safari

And finally... on my iPad in Safari I use the Reader.

It has about the same features as Evernote Clearly, except that it is not an extension and only exists on iOS.
Luckily it is built into the browser since several iOS version (not sure how long) and therefore is just there (for free).

It also comes with a reading list feature, but I never use that, simply because I want my reading list centralized (i.e. pocket).

I only use it to clean the article of all the clutter around it, and it works like charm.

All you need to do is press the little reader icon (seems to represent some text lines as in "text only") left of the URL bar.

Our Wikipedia entry looks like this (click to enlarge).

Nice thing is, that links work.

Getting an iPad Air

A bit more than three years ago I bought an iPad (Generation 1 from today's point of view). 64GB, Wifi only.
There were good reason to stay on Wifi only, because I intended to use the iPad mainly at home and not as a "large" phone to carry around.

My iPad came to be a real companion at home...

• first email and news check in the morning - on the iPad
• last check in the evening/night - on the iPad
• second screen while watching TV - the iPad
• checking news (feedly), email, facebook, twitter in between - the iPad

It did not want to use it while commuting to the office, because I know that I'm an online junkie and that I'd be online all the time on the train/underground. In urgent cases I could still tether through my Android phone.

However, the performance and stability of the iPad deteriorated... or rather: began to suck.
For example. when entering a new appointment in the calendar app, the lag when trying to select the time was a couple of seconds (!). Feedly, Pocket, Facebook would crash, i.e. just exit, several times a day.
This really started with iOS 5.1... And since this is an Generation 1 iPad there is no upgrade path to iOS 6 or 7.

So, as much as I love my iPad I also started to hate it.
I used to work a lot (while at Sun Microsystems) with Thin Clients (specifically the SunRay) and loved the notion of a client device, that would not age. Meaning that the capacity in the client (CPU, memory, screen estate, ...) would suffice for all IT trends for say 7-10 years.

In a way the iPad started as a thin client, and - call me naïve - I expected an iPad to last 4-5 years.
It did not. Not even three years and it got obsolete (for my usage pattern).
That's a PC replacement cycle, not a thin client cycle.

So over the last couple of months I was actually considering switching to a Nexus 7. But then I decided to stay in both worlds, Android on my phone, iOS on my tablet.

Yesterday I ordered my iPad Air... to get back stability and speed. Still Wifi only.
The old iPad will probably stay around as a TV/raspbmc remote...